The sheep-panic of 1888

On Nov. 3, 1888, about 8 p.m. near Reading, Berkshire, flocks of sheep in a tract of land 25 miles long and 8 miles wide were affected by some simultaneous impulse, according to Symons’ Meteorological Magazine and the London Times, Nov. 20, 1888. Thousands of sheep burst from their pens and were found widely scattered the next morning, “some of them still panting with terror under hedges, and many crowded into corners of fields.”

Another panic occurred the next year in Berkshire, not far from Reading.